Discourses and Migration (DIMIG)

How do the media and politicians frame migration flows in public discourses ? To what extent these discourses relate to actual migration and asylum flows ?
Both media and politicians react differently to various international movements of people according to incomers origin, nationality and socio-political and economic contexts in which discourses are anchored. They also both construct discourses about migration and notably about “migration crises”, absent any substantial inflows of migrants, but in connection with broader national or international political issues. The DIMIG project intends to better understand the interactions between migration flows, the media and political discourses. This relationship is part of a more general puzzle in social sciences : How do discourses shape (mis)representations of social realities ?

The project brings together economists, political scientists, geographers and data scientists and relies upon mixed methods. It is organised in two work packages that will be carried out from 2023 to 2025. The project members are grateful to the Institut Convergences Migrations and the Fondation de France for their financial support of 72,000€, without which the project would not have been possible.

The project is split in two work packages and teams:

A team based at CERI-Sciences po led by Hélène Thiollet, together with its partner institutions works on migration crisis discourses, polarisation and geographical imaginations in the media across multiple contexts (France, Iran, Italy, Poland, Turkey, the UK and the US) ⇒ learn more

A team based at the Department of Economics at Université Paris 1 led by Léa Marchal and Claire Naiditch, works on political discourses on immigration in France ⇒ learn more